


Small Missteps

by CasinoLights



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Caesar's Legion, F/M, Gen, I try to make it as non-triggering as possible, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Trigger warnings and context in chapter notes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-10-25 02:43:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10755090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CasinoLights/pseuds/CasinoLights
Summary: The Malpais Legate has followed Caesar since they were just Joshua and Edward. Time wears down the sturdiest of walls, of empires, of men. As Joshua watches Edward's people rise and thrive, he begins to see -and feel - its effects. Loyalty doesn't last forever, and neither do emperors. Especially not when they insist on starting wars they can't finish.Edward's right- and left-hand men have been beside him for years. Bill and Joshua love the empire they've raised together, enough that they should want to see it succeed. Conquest is in Caesar's blood, written in his stars... and yet the other two-thirds of his Triumvirate keep telling him to keep what he has. The NCR, that stagnant beast, is just waiting for an enemy to tear it down. Why shouldn't this Legion be the one to do it?Lucius, Lanius, and Vulpes Inculta didn't start out as rivals. They trained each other, fought side-by-side, took entire cities apart with their combined talents. But even the best of men fall prey to pride, and where one succeeds, another fails. Training becomes fighting, battles become competitions, and teamwork becomes torture. Armies are only as strong as the bonds between their soldiers - and these are growing strained indeed.





	1. I

Books upon books fill Joshua Graham’s bedroom, and not all of them are holy. Books of history, books in Latin, books with plays about ancient Rome in them. And below them, forgotten in the dust, books he’d brought from New Canaan.

He pulls one from the bottom of a stack and lets the others fall. Even with limited space for books, and most of that taken up by guides and atlases and translation manuals, he brought a thick tome full of poetry and hymns. He’d only smiled at Sallow and Calhoun when they scowled and told him to drop it or use it for kindling.

“It puts me to sleep,” he joked.

Now he just calls it foolish. A relic of a missionary with bright eyes and faith and clean hands. It has no place in the home of a warrior.

But he looks at its dirty cover and remembers long nights reading by candlelight. Evenings in cramped caves and small shacks where he, Edward, and Bill slept in the same bed, pushed together like snack cakes in a box. Hot days spent in the shade while Bill dramatically read poems and Edward laughed so hard he cried.

Maybe poetry has no place in a warrior's home, but fond memories do. And when it comes to Edward and Bill, fond memories are just about all he has left. 

* * *

 Caesar reclines in the shade with Graham standing beside him, watching their men train in the ring below, and feels a twinge of regret.

They happen from time to time, lingering until he shakes himself out of them. They send his head into a flurry of things he’s done, things he will do, things he _should_ have done. There’s no point in that, he knows – no point in living if he isn’t living in the present. But the Legion needs a leader. A tactician. Someone who can’t be outsmarted or outnumbered. Someone who can think ahead and put the enemy back in their place. So he blinks his eyes and adjusts his sunglasses and looks again at the men in the ring.

Legion men are trained to fight with whatever they can get their hands on. Stones, sand, pre-war junk – it doesn’t matter. If it can be thrown, scattered, or swung, they’ll use it. But if there’s one thing Caesar despises, it’s having his back to the wall, so he teaches them not to let themselves need those tricks in the first place.

He huffs impatiently as they fumble with their weapons. “Weaklings,” he rumbles gruffly. “All of them.”

Graham just watches.

“Nothing like the last batch. These bastards won’t even make a contubernium.”

“They could if they had a worthy caput contubernii.”

“Decanus,” Caesar corrects. When Graham frowns, he only shrugs and says, “Same thing, less of a mouthful.”

Graham looks again toward the ring. A boy of no more than thirteen, a wispy thing with his tribal markings still wearing off in the sun, had just flipped a soldier twice his age onto the ground and held a machete to his neck.

"Break it up, Legate. That kid has potential."

He nods once, descends upon the ring like a stormcloud, and shouts, “ _Desinite_!” His eyes are fixed on the boy, and the other soldiers take notice. They part for their Legate and kneel at his sides as he faces the boy with narrowed eyes and barks, “Name.”

The boy doesn’t even look up from the ground until Graham swats the back of his head.

“ _Name_.”

He raises his head, eyes wide with fear, and stammers, “My trainer calls me Lucius.”

* * *

 The Malpais Legate puts Lucius under Lanius’ care. Lucius is only a few years younger, but Lanius has the raw power of ten ordinary boys. If anyone can show Lucius how to harness his strength, it’s him. So every day, under Graham’s watchful eye, Lucius and Lanius train. They spar with slaves, then with each other, then with older legionaries. Lucius is patience and Lanius is fury, and the balance they find in every fight is uncanny. Days become weeks become months, and they only grow stronger as they grow older.

Graham and Sallow watch this and smile like fathers. “Which kid’s yours?” Edward laughs one night while they drink on his sofa, heads on shoulders and hands on thighs.

“Lucius,” says Joshua, only half-joking. “He’s going far. I can feel it.”

Edward belches. “Better start getting taller, then. Lanius is gonna beat him to it.”

“To what?”

“The next Legate.”

Joshua scoffs and lays his head against the back of the sofa. “Already planning my untimely demise, Edward?”

He laughs again, eyes wild and bright. That’s the Edward he’s always wanted. “You can't be indestructible forever. I want to be there when you're not.”

* * *

Their newest captures are a family of three. There used to be four, but the man fought back – a pity, since he managed to take down one of the legionaries with nothing but a broken sarsaparilla bottle. He could've made a fine soldier, if they broke him down enough. The oldest female still bleeds and isn’t unpleasant to look at, so once she calms she might be of some use. But it's her daughters that are the real prizes.

The older girl is somewhere around ten and screams the whole way back, even when Lucius offers her a sweet apple. Still, with two years to adjust her to life in the Legion, whether she likes it or not, she could make a fine wife. She’s built tall and lean and muscular, like her mother, with hair the sun turned soft gold and skin the color of rich clay.

The little one, half her sister’s age but with all her features, just hugs herself and cries softly. Lucius offers her the apple when she glances up at him a few hours into the ride and she quiets almost instantly. He smiles when her tiny hand reaches out for it, but the older one knocks the apple onto the ground and starts shouting again.

Lanius leans toward him and says he gets to be the one who breaks them when they get back. His first slaves from his first raid.

“It’s an accomplishment, Lucius. Be proud.”

He isn’t.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to put trigger warnings for anything potentially upsetting at the very beginning. If you feel safe reading with just the info provided in the tags, feel free to skip this as I've included the potentially triggering lines below.
> 
> Trigger warnings: briefly implied rape with the following context – "They want to know what it's like to f**k a woman without holding her down" and "An officer’s side is no place for a gentle woman, not when his subordinates will steal her away and rob her of everything she has and then a little more for good measure."

Joshua frowns at the book in his hands before grumbling something and skipping it across the room. He runs a hand through his hair and curls his fingers in it as he tries to remember the conjugations. Is it future imperfect? Plural or singular?

The Legate has never been one for Latin. He prefers tribal languages, cobbled together from dead dialects only old ghouls and those with a bad case of old world blues still speak. From what he knows of pre-war history, the languages help him click each puzzle piece of a tribe into place. Who are they made of? Where did they come from? What do they seek?

With a little scrutiny, some clever translating, and a quick mind, he’s taken apart entire villages thanks to what he learned from their past. Caesar treasures him for that.

Edward treasured him for other things too, once, but Edward doesn’t like to be called that anymore.

So Joshua looks back to his pile of books and slips a thicker one from its place in the stack. The old hymnbook is in surprisingly good condition for something that’s been through a nuclear war, then dragged across the country in an old sack. One of the pages has a spot of blood on the corner, so he flips to that one.

49\. “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

He recognizes it immediately. Something sour twists in the pit of his stomach as he reads the opening lines and the smell of a meetinghouse fills his nostrils. He hasn’t opened this book enough to rid it of the scent of weathered pews and dusty tomes, and part of him wants to close the cover so it won’t fade.

Then he realizes how ridiculous that is to a man who’s said more than once that he wants to leave his old life behind, so he tears out the page to prove it to himself.

* * *

Caesar taps his fingers impatiently against the chipped side of a chalice half-filled with red wine as the men before him plead their cases. Graham, as always, stands beside him, calm and motionless.

A legionary took his decanus’ slave for his own, apparently, and returned her bruised – and pregnant. The decanus calls for punishment, but the legionary insists the slave deceived and seduced him in an attempt to escape.

Caesar waves his hand and rolls his eyes. “A night in the ditch for the kid,” he declares. “Kill the slave.”

The decanus widens his eyes. “My lord?”

“You heard me.”

As if to punctuate the sentence, Graham’s hand finds the machete at his waist and his lips curl into a snarl. The decanus stares at his feet for a moment as the legionary is dragged away by his ankles, then he shuts his eyes and kneels before Caesar.

“You’re dismissed. All of you.”

Everyone – even the guards – turn to leave, but Caesar takes Graham by the wrist as he makes for the entrance. With his free hand, he pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs roughly. “I don’t suppose you have any insight about this sudden influx of slave-related disputes?”

Graham shakes his head slowly. “They all want to know what it’s like to fuck a woman without holding her down.” The words sound crude and harsh from his mouth, but he swallows them with a sip from Caesar’s chalice. “It’s when they finally do that love creeps in. Then the younger ones see it and want it more.”

Caesar chuckles, but there’s no joy in his eyes. “Only natural to covet what your leaders have. Their power, their weapons… their whores. You’ll covet mine someday, Graham.”

“Only if you keep them, Sallow.”

* * *

Lucius spits blood into the sand and wheezes as he scrambles to his feet. Lanius is laughing, laughing, _laughing_ , and half the camp can hear it, and he mocks Lucius’ stumbling movements and staggered breaths before punching him in the gut again.

Lucius cries out in pain, falls to his knees, and thumps his fist against the ground three times. So Lanius stops and extends his hand with that wicked smile still streaked across his face, barely bruised by Lucius’ efforts.

“The Legate ordered me to send you to him if I won. He knew I would.” Ever the braggart, that Lanius. “He’s in the court. I’m sure he’ll be gentler on you.”

Lucius can only cough wetly and spit another mouthful of blood as he grips Lanius’ arm for support.

“Or are you too hurt?” It sounds like a trick question, one that’ll have Lucius sprawled out on the ground again if he answers it at all, so he just lets go of Lanius and limps out of the ring.

A passing slave – a child, no more than eight – notes his injuries on his way to Caesar’s court. She skitters away and he sighs with frustration. What a sight he must be, bloodied and battered and covered in dirt. No wonder he’d scare children just by looking at them. But she returns a few moments later with a pitcher of water sloshing about in her little arms and a towel draped over her shoulder. She sets the pitcher at Lucius’ feet, holds the towel toward him, and stares at him expectantly.  

He chuckles weakly, ignoring the shooting pain in his chest when he does. “Thank you,” he manages, and softly pats her head.

She runs off again, this time with a glowing smile, and he thinks of the girls he and Lanius captured. He wonders what kind of slaves they’ll be as he washes his face and arms. He wants them to thrive here, like that one – to do their jobs well and make themselves too useful to harm. Maybe someday they’ll marry officers, if they behave, and live in peace.

But then he thinks of the older women, dressed in silks and gold and old world treasures, and how they are coveted for more than their things. An officer’s side is no place for a gentle woman, not when his subordinates will steal her away and rob her of everything she has and then a little more for good measure. Not when the men won’t let them fight or strategize or speak their minds.

It occurs to him then, staring at the tents the little girl disappeared behind: Caesar’s Legion is no place for gentle women. Or _any_ women.

* * *

 The new captures sit side by side with their wrists bound and their collars charged. The mother hangs her head and says nothing. The oldest girl spits curses and threats at everyone who passes until the men are drawing straws for watch duty. The youngest one merely watches with what almost looks like rapt interest, bright eyes darting across the camp as she sits patiently in the cage.

“Don’t talk to anyone, no matter what they say,” the oldest one whispers. “Don’t even tell them your name. They’re monsters.”

The little one nods. Her eyes never leave the legionaries at work until her sister grabs her by the arm.

“Promise me.”

“Promise what?” Her small voice is quiet, dried out from the desert air.

“Promise you’ll keep watching them. Even when they don’t want you to.” A half-hearted smile flickers across her face. “Especially when they don’t want you to.”

So, like the dutiful little sister she wants to be, she returns her attention to the men on the other side of the bars.

A soldier trips on his bootlaces and another one laughs at him, but then helps him up and wipes the sand off his armor when he thinks no one else is looking. The one who tripped squeezes his hand, but then another soldier in a different hat walks by and the moment is gone.

The girl realizes they like each other, the way she liked Freddie Danvers before Papa took the family east. They can’t be monsters if they have good feelings like that, can they?

 _Maybe they’re just like me_ , she thinks. _Just like people._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for this chapter (NOT SPOILER FREE): Graphic injury description and child death.

Caesar’s Legion is still new, but Joshua’s anger is not. Years of repressing emotions deemed sinful and taboo by the New Canaanites don’t produce a happy boy. His “mission” to spread their gospel to distant tribes was undertaken mainly to get away from them entirely. He never imagined how far he would get.

Sallow knows this about him, but Calhoun does not, and he keeps dropping dirty books of history into Joshua’s lap. Each new tale about the thrill of victory or the glory of strategy and combat just increases his desire for another real fight. Watching the men train, beating each other until one submits, is no longer enough.

Bloodshed cannot be replicated. And only bloodshed will do.

“A moment, Lord?” asks Joshua during a lull in court one day, his fingers twitching with anticipation by his holster.

Caesar obliges with a careless wave of his fingers. His rings clink as they touch.

“We need new bodies and a real challenge for our legionaries. Instead of relying on caravans here and there, if we could take one more tribe—”

Caesar barks a laugh. “Just one? I want ten more. Twenty more! I’ve been waiting for you to ready the men for a year and a goddamn half, Graham. Pick a target and throw the boys at it.”

Joshua can almost taste copper in his mouth, and he feels alive. “Do you have a preference?”

“Sure,” he snorts. “The biggest one you can find.”

Joshua bows. “Yes, my lord. We will scour the region.”

“Everything in this godforsaken desert will be mine someday, Legate,” Caesar declares, leaning back in his throne. “Make sure of that.”

* * *

Lucius wrinkles his nose as he passes a row of sleeping bags, tattered and dirty. They smell of vomit and waste, and he knows by that alone that he’s wandered past a “slave pile,” as Lanius calls them. He sees a little girl curled up in one of them, shivering, and dimly recognizes her as the one who brought him water a few weeks ago.

The rest of the bags are empty, and it’s clear the girl shouldn’t be napping so early in the day, but he catches sight of a bloody smear on the already-stained bag and kneels to look closer. Her leg is injured, twisted badly, with an abrasion that’s torn her skin from her tissue. Such a painful injury on such a small child, and her only treatment is a bundle of herbs and rags that’s already soaked and fallen away.

His own leg itches and he runs his fingers over an old scar – a wound not too different from this little girl’s, one sustained in training when Lanius pushed him down and stepped on him. It took weeks to heal fully, and only with steady cleaning and care. The child’s wound is festering already.

He lifts her gently and she croaks out a pained noise, but Lucius hushes her with his finger. “Be still, little one,” he whispers. “I’m going to help you.”

She raises her arm and loops it around the back of his neck, and he slings her over his shoulder. She weakly groans every time he jostles her leg, but he rubs circles on her back to soothe her as he ducks from tent to tent, hiding from the slowly patrolling legionaries.

Eventually, she quiets altogether. “There’s a good girl,” he says, pulling some of her dirty hair away from where it tickles his skin.

She only replies with a warm puff of breath on the back of his neck.

When he reaches one of Flagstaff’s older, less-frequented bathhouses, he sets her down on the floor by the pool and grabs a cloth from a ring nearby and drenches it. He cleans the dirt from her leg and washes out the wound, and talks to her through the entire process.

“You’re doing so well,” he says kindly. “You’re so brave. You’ll make such a strong young woman. We’ll keep you safe. Good little ones like you are rare.”

She doesn’t reply.

He brings over a small towel and tells her he’s found a soft new blanket for her to bring home. “Come on, sit up,” he says. “It’ll keep you warm, little one. It’s a pretty color. You’ll like it.”

She doesn’t move. Neither does he, for a time. Just sits and waits for her to stir. He asks for her name. Her age. If her parents still live.

And then, quietly, if she still lives.

None of his questions are answered, and stifling pressure boils in his stomach, then his chest, then his throat, until his whole body burns and he vomits into the pool. His nose runs and his tears mingle with it and his hands are sticky with blood, and all he can think of is who would hurt such a small child. What had she done wrong? Why had she been so harshly punished and left to—

He vomits again and lets himself sob until he can’t breathe. He’d been imagining watching that little girl grow up, staying strong despite how the others may treat her, maybe even marrying a soldier one day and becoming a mother. And now she’s gone.

He dries his eyes with the back of his hand and swallows his last few sobs. Then he wraps the girl’s body in the towel he brought her and buries her half a mile outside the perimeter.

The Malpais Legate asks where he was when he returns to the courthouse, clean and steady once more. His reply is a well-rehearsed speech about hunting a nest of geckos he saw on his way to that afternoon’s training. He isn’t sure if Graham believes it or not, but that doesn’t matter. Not when he sees the cold face of that dead child in his dreams for half a year straight.

* * *

The newest captures are not so new anymore when the soldiers in crimson take them out of their cage. The youngest boy is the gentlest when he hauls the girls up by their arms, but his older companions tell him to grip harder. The ten year-old girl spits in the faces of every man who doesn’t wear a full helmet and tells her sister to run, but it falls on deaf ears. Even as the men hold her tighter, she just looks up at them with inquisitive eyes and doesn’t make a sound.

“This one will make an excellent slave,” says the leader of the soldiers. “Separate them.”

The ten year-old screams wildly and struggles against her captors until one of the soldiers hits her with his shoe and she slumps over. She’ll have a bruise on her head the size of a mutfruit when she wakes.

Still, the five year-old doesn’t fight. One of the young men carrying her is the one who tripped and fell a few weeks ago, the one who held the other boy’s hand, and she flashes him a toothy smile when he looks down at her.

He smiles back. It fades quickly and he looks around at his fellows nervously, and she gets the impression he shouldn’t have done that.

Still, when the others leave him alone with her, he sits her on his shoulders and runs around one of the empty buildings a few times. She laughs, the first noise she’s made for weeks, and he does too.

When he puts her down, he tousles her sunny curls and kneels to face her. “I know this might be scary,” he says, taking both her little hands in his, “but if you keep being quiet, you’ll be safe. Just smile and nod, okay? When we ask you to do something, you do it.”

She smiles and nods.

“If anyone gives you any trouble, you tell them you work for Cyrus and they’ll leave you alone. You hear me? Cyrus.”

“Cyrus,” she repeats, mimicking his low voice.

He grins at her proudly. “You’re going to fit in just fine.”

He takes her by the wrist – by the hand, really, but he knows how to hold her arm so it won’t draw stares – and leads her past house after house. She remembers what Papa’s NCR friends used to say about tribes and this isn’t anything like that. They have sturdy homes and nice clothes and food and water aplenty. People bustle everywhere, a beautiful flurry of activity she never thought possible from a village in the middle of the desert. As the kind legionary leads her to what looks like the center of it all, a sort of town square lined with long buildings and large tents filled with women in soft clothes, the smells of roasting meat and fresh bread mingle in the air. The girl’s mouth waters as she cranes her neck to take in the entire area.

“If you’re good,” says the kind soldier, leaning down so she can hear him, “Maybe you can work here someday. Would you like that?”

She nods vigorously.

“I thought so. Now, let’s get you to Allia so she can start showing you around...”

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: Combat, gore, and very brief mentions of cannibalism.

When Joshua fights, the world shakes beneath him. Lanius is beside him, calm and cold like Edward imagines Death Himself, and Lucius is in the front lines, exactly Lanius’ opposite.

They set up an ambush at the very beginning – a cluster of men sent to incapacitate anyone they found and pile them in a safe place for retrieval later. They seem to perform… adequately. Graham reminds himself to have them all brush up on their nonlethal combat abilities once the battle is won, but for now he directs them. Catch this one, kill that one, take the child, separate those two, put them here, now bring them to a cart.

The ambush is discovered, and the first wave of soldiers move in. Instantly, the camp becomes a cacophony of screams and clashing metal. The Legate’s laughter fills the air and mingles with gunshots and the cries of the fallen. Music only Caesar’s Legion can dance to, playing discordantly for all to hear, stretches through the valley this simple tribe once called home. Joshua hopes the river carries it all the way west, all the way to the Republic’s front steps. News will travel, if nothing else.

One by one, the tribe falls. Its warriors are the first to succumb, but Graham sees nothing but a waste as his men kill more than they take. This is about conquest by assimilation, not eradication. He explained that every night during the journey here, but they’re too green, too excited, too bloodthirsty. They don’t listen. They just keep hacking down the tribals until the valley turns from green to red.

As the battle rages and the Legion advances, the river’s currents swirl with blood. Bodies halt against the boulders downstream and form a veritable dam, and the river slowly begins to flood. Ankle-deep in bloody water, the legionaries on the bank attack with long-range rifles – any boy too small to hold one gets a sling instead – and pick off the tribals that the main force leaves for them.

Joshua’s men spread across the battlefield like a wildfire, a virus infecting all it touches, and anyone who doesn’t fight back is incapacitated for transport. Strong men, young men, and those who surrender mid-fight are also taken, even amidst the flurry of activity.

Children cower in huts made of painstakingly shaved cacti. Lucius tries to remember the uses of barrel cacti he’s been taught – just one more in a series of futile attempts to distract his mind from the utter carnage he’s taking part in – until a little boy no older than eight throws a knife at him. He pulls it out of his thigh, but Lanius is upon the boy before he’s even staunched the bleeding. Effortlessly, he flings the child into the river, even as the Legate yells for him to stop, and the crack of bone again rock echoes back from the canyon.

Joshua growls under his breath and shoots an incoming warrior in the chest. Edward gave him orders: take as many alive as possible, even the ones who fight back. _Especially_ the ones who fight back. But the men are just too too frenzied in the heat of it all to show any restraint, and so far they’ve only taken one cartful alive.

“We want them broken, Lanius, not dead!” he calls over the sounds of screams and clashing steel. “Control yourself!”

Lucius slices the top off a cactus hut and grabs the child sobbing inside it. “Don’t move,” he hisses. “Stay still and stay silent.”

He passes the boy down toward the wagons. Stunningly, he does as Lucius said, and they load him into a card with no trouble.

Lucius praises small miracles. Emboldened by that little victory of his own, he proceeds down the line of huts, cutting off their tops and snatching the inhabitants inside. But he slices one open and recoils in shock when he finds nothing but bones, gnawed clean.

“Legate!” he screams above the clamor. “ _Legate_!”

* * *

 Edward reclines on his bed and watches Joshua pace back and forth across his bedroom. “You didn’t know.”

“That doesn’t make it better,” Joshua snaps. His feet thump against the floor in a clockwork rhythm. “Two carts aren’t enough. Most of them are women and children. Our soldiers don’t understand how to capture, Edward. They just kill. …Like animals.”

He extends a hand toward Joshua. “They’re not animals. It’s their first real battle. They did their best and so did you.”

He sits on the bed beside Edward, who reaches up to stroke his neck. “Well, we have some new men, at least. The ones we took can be retrained to _not_ eat people, and the boys can be raised to fight for us.”

“See?” Edward sits up and drapes his arm across Joshua’s shoulders. “Our Legion is victorious once more.”

Joshua’s veneer breaks and he smiles. “I would never fail you.”

“See that you don’t,” he replies softly. “I’d hate to punish you.”

They share a knowing glance and a smirk, then laugh together and burn the day’s battle away.

* * *

Lucius and Lanius train again, but Lucius has a trick up his sleeve. He ducks when Lanius swings high, grabs a fistful of sand, and throws it up into Lanius’ eyes before delivering a swift kick to the knee that topples him.

Lanius cries foul and demands a mediator. Lucius just sighs with relief.

It’s the Malpais Legate who responds to the call, and when he sees the scrape on Lanius’ face and the swollen bruises on Lucius’, he crosses his arms over his chest and stares them both down.

“What happened?”

“Lucius cheated!”

Lucius hides his grin behind a cough, but it fades when he tastes blood. Lanius did not lose gracefully, and his aching ribs agree.

The Legate does not seem impressed. “Did he, now?”

“He threw sand in my face!”

Graham waits. When Lanius says nothing else, he laughs.

Lucius is half afraid Lanius is going to whirl around and put him down, but he just stands still and straight and curls his hands into fists.

“Boy, if you think our enemies fight with rules, you are very, very wrong,” Graham says once his laughter has faded. “If, for some reason, you can’t use your eyes, then you must learn to fight without them.” He turns toward Lucius. “And if you, for some reason, can’t use your wits, then you must learn to use your strength. Keep training. Fight harder. Be better.”

Lucius kneels and Lanius follows suit… reluctantly. “Yes, Legate,” they hum in unison.

“But for now, go clean up. Lord Caesar wants you both in the _Curia_.”

“Yes, Legate,” they repeat. “True to Caesar.”

“True to Caesar,” he replies before turning sharply and departing the ring.

Lanius rounds on Lucius once they’re alone. He dwarfs Lucius, despite being younger. “This isn’t over,” he sneers, poking at Lucius’ chestpiece. “If you’re so tired of rules, I can break them too.”

Lucius lowers his head. “We’ll meet here after the morning meal tomorrow.”

“If we don’t meet somewhere else first.”


	5. Chapter 5

Calhoun runs through the desert like a windstorm, racing toward the Grand Canyon with nothing but the shirt on his back and a message of conquest.

“After all this time, Bill, you sneak out on me?” Edward had snarled, pressing Joshua’s gun to his forehead. “You shove your tail between your legs at the first sign of trouble? We _won_ , Bill, and you’re running?”

It wasn’t what he thought. Joshua caught him packing his bags and they argued until Edward stepped in. All Bill wanted to do was clear his head. He wasn’t leaving forever.

But now he is. It’s that or die.

“Run then,” said Graham. “Go back to the Grand Canyon.”

“And tell everyone what we’ve done.” Edward had a fire in his eyes brighter than the sun, redder than his banners. “Tell the NCR. Tell them Caesar’s Legion is coming for them.”

What other choice does he have? He arrives at the Canyon, panting, bruised, and broken. He tells the Followers. He tells their NCR contacts. He tells the New Canaanites.

But for them, he spares the details. For them, he says their lost boy, their prodigal son, their bright-eyed Joshua Graham died peacefully. They weep… but not as hard as they would if they knew the truth.

For this Joshua Graham is not theirs any longer.

* * *

 The little girl with brown skin and blonde curls is settling in nicely, Cyrus thinks. He takes her by the wrist and leads her through the _Forum_ whenever he can, showing her the different buildings. The shops, the temple, the stalls with their roasting meat and savory vegetables – she takes them all in with wide eyes and a curious mind. She still doesn’t speak much, but that’s alright. She listens, and that is what counts.

She’ll make a fine worker when she gets a little older.

She watches him and Felix with great interest, he’s noticed, but since she still hasn’t spoken a word to anyone, he’s not afraid of letting her continue. It almost feels… freeing to let someone else see. To know that someone _else_ knows. They can let themselves linger for just a moment longer, be just a little bit closer, act just a little bit braver.

Though Felix is still quick to brush him away, they feel nearer than they ever have. He is always nervous, that dear Felix – always worried someone will catch them, but Cyrus promises him every night that the others do it too. They do things like this and hide it, just like he does, and even if they get caught it won’t stop love.

But in the morning, Cyrus asks himself if it really _is_ love, and tries to forget that he knew it was only a few hours before. The Legate has been cracking down on his men, swapping tent arrangements once a month, making sure none of them are developing attachments. He’d seen one too many soldiers clutching the fallen and saying woeful goodbyes in the blood-soaked valley they’d assaulted, and now all he sees are liabilities.

Cyrus praises Jupiter that neither he nor Felix were in that battle. Too brash. Too green. Lord Caesar wanted all his boys to fight, but the practical Legate knew such a mishmash of abilities would be madness. Lucky for them, then, that they were considered weaker members of Caesar’s Legion. Normally, a label like that means bloody training – or worse, culling of the crop – but avoiding large battles was a perk they never knew they had.

Felix kissed him harder than he’d ever been kissed the night the Legate left. _That_ perk was even better.

* * *

 Lucius lies in a private tent with broken bones and internal injuries, staring up at the holes in the cloth and wondering why Lord Caesar won’t let him die.

Lanius finally wounded him. It isn’t just training anymore. It isn’t a fight for honor or glory. These are battles for blood, and Lucius knows he’s losing. Badly.

The tent flap opens and Legate Graham steps inside. He presses a few buttons on the strange device Lucius is wired to and it clicks on. As soon as its whirring subsides, so does his pain, and he feels like he’s floating.

His voice sounds distant and foreign as he slurs, “What did you do?”

“Rest,” says Graham. “We’ll speak when you’ve recovered. You’ll survive, if only just.”

“Only… _ugh_ …” The cloth above him swirls and a wave of horrid nausea washes over Lucius before his eyes shut of their own accord and he falls unconscious.

When he wakes, it feels like only moments have passed. But he sees Graham sitting in a chair, asleep, with a book propped open on his lap, he realizes it’s been hours. He clenches his teeth when he stirs, awaiting the inevitable pain… but it never comes. He flexes his fingers and realizes they’re stiff, but usable. His leg no longer feels like he’ll split it in two if he puts more than a feather’s weight on it.

His chest, however, aches like a fresh wound when he breathes deeply. His sharp grunt wakes the Legate, who startles and drops his book to the ground before blinking the sleep from his eyes and refocusing on Lucius.

“You’re awake.”

Lucius nods.

“Right,” Graham mutters to himself. “What else would you be, staring at me like that?”

“Sir?”

Graham waves his hand dismissively. “Don’t call me that.”

Lucius swallows hard. “Yes, Legate.”

“Don’t call me that either. Not right now.”

“Sir—I mean…”

“Joshua. For now, at least.”

It sounds so frighteningly _human_ when Lucius repeats it. He doesn’t dare say it again.

Joshua crosses his arms and leans back in his chair. “So… Lanius defeated you.”

“Yes, he did.”

“Care to explain how?”

He does not. His ribs ache at the very thought. But he sighs quietly and speaks. “It began as normal. The rules were the same – hit the ground when you are done, and the match stops.”

“And?”

“And I hit the ground, but Lanius did not stop.”

“So I gathered,” Joshua snips with irritation. “I did not ask how he mangled you, boy, I asked how he _defeated_ you.”

“He’s… stronger than me, Legate. Joshua.”

“That is not an excuse.”

“I… I don’t—”

“Of course not,” Joshua snarls. He rises from his chair and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I placed great faith in you, Lucius. I believe you can defeat Lanius. It seems I have to train you personally to do that.”

Lucius says nothing, biting the inside of his cheek until it hurts.

“However…” Joshua continues, beginning to pace across the small tent. “Where he fights with strength, you fight with your wits.”

“I tried to fight with strength in the ring. He bested me.”

“Then perhaps I was… _hmph_. Perhaps I was wrong. After all, why neglect your skills?” He taps his thumb against each of his fingers in turn as he paces. “We’ll build your strength, of course, but focus on developing the talents you already have. Now that… that could make you one of our best.”

Lucius perks up at that. “I want to serve Lord Caesar. I want to bring glory to his Legion.”

“And you will,” Joshua says. He turns toward Lucius and stands still. “You most certainly will. All you have to do is listen to me.”


	6. Chapter 6

Whispers abound through Flagstaff that the Malpais Legate is playing favorites, but no one dares to broach the subject in his presence. Every night, he takes Lucius into the ring while no one else watches, and every afternoon, he watches him train with his fellow soldiers.

One night, many weeks into Lucius’ new training, Joshua stops the fight and calls for a short break.

“I’m not tired, Joshua,” says Lucius insistently, despite his own ragged breathing. “I can still fight.”

Joshua says nothing, just tosses him a bottle of clear water from the springs.

Lucius gulps it down. He hadn’t even realized how thirsty he was until the liquid hit his dry throat.

“You watch my feet too much, boy,” Joshua grunts. “I see where your eyes go.”

“I’m trying to anticipate your next steps.”

“Then look at my hips.” Joshua demonstrates a simple strafe. “Look here,” he says, putting his hands on his waist. “Feet, hands – they move too much. Watch my hips. Watch my shoulders. Then you’ll see where my legs and arms will go.”

Lucius nods. He mirrors the strafe and focuses on his own joints.

“Feel where you’re turning? The waist is a pivot point. Follow that whenever you can, and you’ll know where your enemy is going.” Joshua shifts himself in another direction. “Now, see that? Where was I going?”

“Left,” Lucius answers.

“Wrong. I was going right.”

“But your hips—”

“Went left. Correct. I _began_ to move left, but I swerved at the last second.” He repeats the movement more slowly, letting Lucius see exactly how he moved. “Try it.”

He does, and he stumbles when his ankles cross.

“No, not all at once. Take it slow.” Somewhere in the back of Joshua’s mind, he can see Edward laughing, eyes gleaming, as he says _Rome wasn’t built in a day_.

Lucius exhales sharply and tries again. “Left, then—” He crosses his ankles again but stays standing, and executes the move correctly, if clumsily.

“Good.” Joshua very nearly smiles, and Lucius is very nearly floored by it. “The best way to defend yourself is to just not be where the enemy expects you to be.”

“And this will help me defeat Lanius?”

Joshua scoffs. “This alone? Hardly. But along with everything else I can teach you? You can defeat _anyone_.”

* * *

Edward sips wine from a crystal chalice and admires the old world craftsmanship. Then, once it’s dry, he throws it against the wall and watches it shatter.

Just like the old world did.

He frowns at the wine bottle sitting on his dresser and thinks of the rumors his girls have whispered to him. Rina says the Legate trains one of the men himself at night. Favoritism in the ranks, says Anita, and the other boys are getting restless. If one gets special attention, they all want it.

So as he lies in bed with Wisteria on his arm, he rambles about the burdens of command and she trails lazy kisses up and down his chest.

“Graham thinks he can just take charge like that,” Caesar mutters absently, twirling a strand of her sun-bleached hair around his finger. “Thinks he knows what the men want, what they need from a leader. He doesn’t. He can train them, he can control them, but I rule them. He can’t just snatch one up and raise him above the others. There’s already infighting. Lanius and Lucius need to work together, not tear each other apart.”

Wisteria wants to talk. She wants to agree, say, “Oh, of course, Caesar. How could he, Caesar? An intelligent leader like you doesn’t deserve such doubt, Caesar.” But after three months of smacks and lashes, she’s gotten the memo that he doesn’t tell her such things for feedback. He wants to talk, so she lets him talk as she massages his hands and nuzzles his arm.

“If Graham thinks Lucius has talent, fine,” he continues bitterly. “He can train the boy personally. But put him in a squad and train them all personally. Why should one be better than the others? If one wheel on a cart moves faster than the rest, the cart will fall over if it hits rough terrain.”

She knows he stole that metaphor from the Legate. Of course, Graham always replaces “faster” with “slower” – the only times he ever uses the phrase are when he’s trying to convince Caesar that the new recruits are awful – but Wisteria, Rina, and Anita have all heard it from the Legate’s mouth at least once.

Such an honor to be one of Lord Caesar’s personal harem. The closer they are to him, the more they can discover about the Legion’s infamous leader… and the less anyone else can hurt them. But each and every one of them knows he won’t love them.

Not like he loves his Legate.

Oh, yes, they know. They know how he spends hours alone with Graham, shuttered in his home – sometimes until the dawn breaks, sometimes until the following day. They know how he’ll slip and whisper _Joshua, Joshua, Joshua_ in his sleep… or at the height of his passion. And they know each and every one of his varied threats when he realizes they’ve caught on.

 _I’ll kill your family, I’ll lock you in the Brahmin pen, I’ll drag you into the desert and leave you to rot, I’ll cut out your tongue and feed it to the hounds_ … he gets increasingly creative the angrier he becomes. Sometimes the girls repeat the threats and laugh when they share the bathhouse. Sometimes they just soak in silence, staring at the water until their grim expressions don’t seem so familiar anymore, until each rippled face is someone else’s. Not theirs. Theirs have faded beneath sun spots and small scars and old makeup to hide bruises. Theirs were so pretty when he chose them, full of life, and theirs have sunken down like a shell... just as they have.

Such an honor to be one of Lord Caesar’s personal harem. The closer they are to him, the more dangerous secrets they must keep… and the less anyone else will ask when they inevitably disappear afterwards.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: injury and violence, including broken bones, lacerations, and gore.

Everyone in Flagstaff hears it when Caesar and his Legate fight. Words that cut deeper than any blade and fly faster than any bullet ring across the city, and it’s all the men can do to ignore them. The slaves are used to shouting, so it bothers them less, but the legionaries struggle.

Leaders quarrel all the time, it’s true, but they aren’t leaders when they fight. They’re just Edward and Joshua, and they’ll tear each other apart because of it.

Caesar wants the men to be victorious, whatever the cost – he’d invite the Four Horsemen themselves through the gates if they promised him an empire – and he tells his Legate to bring him nothing less. Graham knows wars are not won by wishes – armies are made of men, and all men have needs – and he begs patience from his lord.

But the son of Mars is not a patient man. Graham knows this. Oh, does he know.

So Joshua makes his case. Let the boys drink. Let them gamble. They’ll stop longing for the forbidden pleasures outside their camp if they’re offered such gifts within. Edward shuts him down. If they’re allowed some, they’ll just want more. They are warriors, he says, not troublesome children to be placated.

It touches more personal notes when Edward turns his point against Joshua. “What good did it do for you when your tribe coddled you, raised you above the rest, gave you everything you asked for and more?”

Joshua argues back, saying the years in the Boneyard were what made Edward so damned unreasonable, so stubborn and brutish. It never ends well for either of them. Too many insults, too many hasty words flung back and forth in the heat of anger, too many old wounds reopened again and again and again.

They’ve never finished an argument the same way twice. Tonight, Joshua is the one who relents, and Edward has his way once again. Instead of reveling in his victory, he folds into Joshua’s arms, and they burn away what’s left of their ugly passion until morning restarts the cycle.

* * *

Lanius finds a sheet of metal with holes punched through it and he bends it across his knee until it fits his face. An ugly, twisted thing, smelling thickly of bitter rust and biting into his cheeks, but if Legate Graham is truly training Lucius personally, Lanius knows he must be ready. A mask seems only fitting, he thinks, if Lucius is going to fight with sand and dust and dirty tricks.

He braids the leather strap himself, heavy fingers fumbling with thin strips of hide, and he’s cast it aside in frustration more times than he cares to admit. But today is the day, and when he finally fits it to his face, he grins a sickly smile and marches into the ring to fight Lucius once more.

“Face me!” he cries, arms outstretched in the center of the ring. “Bring your tricks and wit! I will best you even so!”

Lord Caesar watches from his throne high above the Coliseum. Lanius can see the curve of a smirk on his face and feels nothing but pride as he paces the chalk circumference.

Legate Graham approaches Caesar and stands beside him, one hand on his shoulder, before leaning in and whispering something. When he rises to his full height, Caesar’s smirk grows and he waves toward the Coliseum.

Lucius enters, wielding a machete as if he’s never held one before. A ruse? They weren’t supposed to be fighting with weapons yet. When Lanius looks toward the blacksmith outside the ring, he won’t meet his eyes. Only one weapon was provided – and it was given to Lucius.

He clutches the hilt of his weapon, knuckles bone-white and stiff, and holds it flat before him. “I accept your challenge, Lanius. What are your terms?”

Lanius flexes his fingers, glances toward Caesar, then wets his lips and tastes the metal of his mask. “If I win, this is the last time we do battle.”

“And if you lose?”

Through the slits in his mask, he eyes Lucius icily. “I will not.”

From above the ring, the Legate’s clear voice sounds across the camp. “ _Incipere_!”

Lanius circles Lucius, who stands as still as one of the crosses at the gates. They watch each other, unblinking, until Lanius tucks his arms inward and rolls forward. He delivers a swift kick to Lucius’s knee. He lets that one touch the ground while the other props him up, and he swings his machete at Lanius but the blow merely glances off his armor.

Lanius takes Lucius by the shoulder and twists him hard. His steady leg wobbles and Lanius takes the opportunity to kick that out from under him until Lucius lies prone in the dirt. Lanius snatches the machete by the blade, but Lucius’s grip is firm, and he swings the blade down as he pushes himself up.

The cut in Lanius’s hand feels barely worse than a scratch, but when he closes his dirty fist he feels his skin burn. Regardless, he swings toward Lucius and hits him in the ribs. At least one of them cracked. He uses the stab of pain to jab his knee up into Lucius’s gut once, then twice, then...

Lucius kicks him back, a swift boot to the girdle, and the ache sends Lanius reeling backwards into the Coliseum wall. He redirects quickly, pushing off the wall and back toward Lucius, but only meets the edge of his machete when he throws another punch. He roars in anger when his leather armor is scarred by the blow, and launches himself again toward his opponent.

Lucius rolls out of the way, but Lanius catches him by the ankle and drags him across the ring before wrenching his limb in directions it should never have gone. Lucius swings the machete up, around, waving it toward Lanius in a desperate attempt to free himself, until he lodges it in the hard-packed sand and uses it as an anchor. He manages to draw his legs inward and thrash them out in a hard kick, which catches Lanius in the chest.

He’s free, but he isn’t safe. He pulls at the stuck blade, but it’s shoved too firmly into the ground and Lanius is upon him again before he can remove it. This time, he throws his head back and smacks into Lanius’s mask. A sickly metallic ringing fills the Coliseum, mingling with the jeers of their brothers, and both combatants stagger away from each other with the force and pain of the blow. Lucius takes the pause to gather a fistful of loose sand, but when he throws it in Lanius’s face the only reaction is a primal howl.

Blow after blow, the battle rages. Lanius swings and Lucius dodges, and Lucius moves and Lanius catches him. Each one watches the other’s body, each one follows it with their own. Lanius even manages to throw Lucius across the ring.

But that is his mistake.

Lucius skids to a halt, the sand grinding against his exposed skin and burning like fire, and his vision steadies just soon enough to see the machete at his side. He takes another fistful of dirt and throws it, but not to distract his opponent. He kicks the hilt of the blade and it bends, then falls, and he lifts it up and throws it just as Lanius reaches for him.

The tip of the blade, bent into an L, embeds itself into his shoulder. He stumbles back, staring wide-eyed at the hilt as it wobbles, then clenches his teeth and tears it out.

Lucius suddenly realizes scaling the walls might well be his best chance now as Lanius rounds on him with cuts, bruises, scrapes aplenty… and now a bloodied machete.

Graham has to personally hold Lanius back. He is declared the winner, his wounds are bandaged loosely, and Lucius is taken to Caesar’s medical tent, where he remains for nearly a fortnight.

Even if Lanius didn’t wear his mask almost constantly after that, Lucius wouldn’t have looked him in the eyes for a year.


End file.
